Camilla took the piece of paper smiling. She knew it was writing, and she knew it was how to spell the man's name, but she couldn't read it. "Ahny" She lulled, tracing the letters with her fingers. She looked over her shoulder to Abby and held the paper up, showing it to her friend as well. To Camilla it seemed like a strange gift, but it was no where near as weird as the other things she'd seen. Before 'Ahny' stepped onto the coals she hooked her arms back around his neck, the paper clutched tightly in her hand. 

The thorns, Camilla soon discovered, where mad of metal. As they grew thicker, they grew hotter as well, searing as they clawed across her back. Still she knew she had gotten the better deal between 'Ahny' and herself. The chard rocks and fire below would burn much more than their heated metal counter parts. As the barred vines grew thicker, Camilla did her best to help. Gingerly she pushed them aside, when there where only a few that couldn't be avoided. Then with more force as her hands became chard with rust, burnt skin, and blood, and she had nothing to lose. 

By the time 'Ahny' had conveyed that she aught to duck her hands were bloodied up to the elbow, and her face bearing a sidelong scratch, at least half an inch deep. The way ahead didn't look good but the end was in sight.  "You can make it," she whispered, shutting her eyes, and burying her face against 'Ahny's' shoulder. In the dark world of her mind she could imagine that it was a hot summer day instead of a death hall. And that she was adventuring with her brother like she'd always wanted to. Barbs scraped across her back like tigers claws but in the end she made her escape. 

Cool air hit like a wall as the thorns ended. She blinked her eyes open in time to topple off 'Ahny's' back before he hit the floor. Cool white marble greeted her, a welcome sight that looked just like home, but of course it wasn't. It was just a step to the means to an end.